New jihad code threatens al Qaeda

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Leaders of one of the world's most effective jihadist organizations, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), have written a new "code" for jihad. The LIFG says it now views the armed struggle it waged against Col. Moammar Gadhafi's regime for two decades as illegal under Islamic law.

The new code, a 417-page religious document entitled "Corrective Studies" is the result of more than two years of intense and secret talks between the leaders of the LIFG and Libyan security officials.

The code's most direct challenge to al Qaeda is this: "Jihad has ethics and morals because it is for God. That means it is forbidden to kill women, children, elderly people, priests, messengers, traders and the like. Betrayal is prohibited and it is vital to keep promises and treat prisoners of war in a good way. Standing by those ethics is what distinguishes Muslims' jihad from the wars of other nations."
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The new jihadi code In essence the new code for jihad is exactly what the West has been waiting for: a credible challenge from within jihadist ranks to al Qaeda's ideology.

While the code states that jihad is permissible if Muslim lands are invaded -- citing the cases of Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine -- the guidelines it sets down for when and how jihad should be fought, and its insistence that civilians should not be targeted are a clear rebuke to the goals and tactics of bin Laden's terrorist network.
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In their new code for Jihadists, LIFG's leaders made it clear that battling extremism will be challenging. "We have written this book knowing full well that the old motives and ideas which made us take up the armed struggle in the past are still to be found in the hearts and minds of many young Muslims today," they wrote.

"We know there are many issues that might lead them to take the same path; that's why we are offering our advice and guidance to these brothers."

Given its credibility and the fact that several other prominent Jihadists in the Middle East have turned against al Qaeda, the LIFG's about face may be an important step toward staunching al Qaeda's recruitment.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/11/09/libya.jihadi.code/

Interesting...

if the fundamentalists are listening. it could be great. crossing my fingers.

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The text is remarkably broad in its scope, and strikes me as a 21st-century Sahwist renewal of the 1970s-era Muslim Brotherhood rejection of Qutbist Islamism. Indeed, the phrase in the last sentence of the excerpt below, about the authors being “preachers not judges,” refers to the famous 1977 Muslim Brotherhood tract of the same title (Hudaybi’s authorship is controversial) that repudiated Sayyid Qutb’s violent form of takfiri revolutionary politics. Given the prominence of the group of people who have already publicly endorsed the Revisions - including Salman al-’Awda and Yusuf al-Qaradawi - the work promises to be quite consequential.
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http://www.jihadica.com/a-first-look-at-the-lifg-revisions/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Jihadica+(jihadica)&utm_content=Google+Reader

Qutb is a major figure in the terrorist vision of Islam.
In 1964, Qutb, having suffered torture as well as ten years of incarceration in Nasser's concentration camps, published perhaps his best known work, Milestones, a work that has inspired some of the more extreme expressions of Islamic revivalism, such as Islamic Jihad and Takfir wa-l Hijra. In addition to his experience of torture under Nasser, Qutb's concept of jahiliyya ("pagan ignorance") was also deeply influenced by his unpleasant experience living in the United States from 1948 until 1951. He had been sent to the U.S. to study American educational institutions. Qutb was deeply offended by the racism he observed (and experienced first-hand) and was scandalized by the openness between the sexes in American society.
http://www.onlineislamicstore.com/syedqutb.html

I read 'Milestones.' He became the inspiration for the militant Muslims such as Al Qaeda. I'll bet he is unknown to a lot of people in the government. If they do know about him, they appear to have dismissed him and his writings. Qutb is a seminal figure in that movement.

this post needs some legs

eta n

CANNOT be orchestrated from the West.

Credibility in the Islamic world cannot be bought or coerced.

"Credibility in the Islamic world cannot be bought or coerced."

why the hell we keep trying is mind boggling. i think the MIC just wants their fix of war.

The MIC must have war and conflict to: (1) justify it's existence; and (2) perpetuate it's existence. The Islamic world, for the most part, has been just another scapegoat and hype-able rationale.

Moderate and liberal Christians of all denominations, including Catholics, Orthodox, Mainline Protestants, and moderate-to-progressive Evangelicals ought to crusade against the Dominionists and other religios wackos.

It never ends.